


Broken Angel

by The_Conspiracy_Theorist



Series: When Fate Comes Knocking [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bruce has knowledge, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Sickfic, Some of them, Superfamily, Thor sees things, angsty fluff, but no-one knows what, scratch that. steve is an awesome parent, so's tony, so...normal state of being?, something's wrong, sort of Domestic Avengers, steve could be a parent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-18 01:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1409605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Conspiracy_Theorist/pseuds/The_Conspiracy_Theorist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The scream would’ve woken the dead locked up in the vaults of Asgard, it pierced the mind and dug into the soul so deeply. As red lights flashed and a cacophony of claxons blared through the New York high rise of Stark Tower, the unmistakable screaming of a terrified teenage boy outweighed the sirens.</p>
<p>After months of heartache, grief and misery, the Team find their youngest in a perilous situation, something unseen that brute force and brawn have no effect on. Through night-terrors to sleep walking, they thought that might be the worst of it. All the doom and gloom catching up with a seventeen year old who'd seen far too much in his life, but as always in these cases, everything starts sliding further and further downhill without any barricade to stop it. Running out of time, and ideas, choices make themselves known with equally devastating consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Angel

**Author's Note:**

> Set after The Avengers and The Amazing Spiderman where Peter moved into the Avenger's Tower after Aunt May's death.

The scream would’ve woken the dead locked up in the vaults of Asgard, it pierced the mind and dug into the soul so deeply. In actuality it woke the entire mansion and even set a security guard on the floor below into an internal panic so drastic that he pulled the emergency response chord. As red lights flashed and a cacophony of claxons blared through the New York high rise of Stark Tower, the unmistakable screaming of a terrified teenage boy outweighed the sirens.

Jolting from the once peaceful slumber, Steve Rogers bolted for the door, barely managing to wrench the offending object open before he ploughed straight through it. Slamming a shoulder into the wall in his haste down the red lit hallway, Steve hauled open the door at the end, not giving a moment’s thought to a pause as his eyes fell upon the thrashing form of his sixteen year old adopted son.

“Peter!” His voice was loud, firm as he tried to grasp at the flailing limbs that were thrown every which way, landing a bruise-leaving hit at least once as the soldier pulled the struggling boy into his chest. Slowly, with hushed words and firm arms, the wails died down, leaving nothing but the ringing in his ears and a shuddering body in his arms. Somewhere along the way the lights had flickered into a dim glow, the sirens cut off by the tousle-haired, wide-eyed Tony Stark who padded over to sit on the edge of the rumpled bed.

The boy was panting, occasionally stopping to swallow hard against the lump that had caught in his throat. The arms around him loosened slightly, probably to allow him just that little more room to breathe, but it sparked a slight indulgence of panic that made him grab at the nearest wrist.

“Hey, you back with us?” A calm sounding Captain America asked from above him, craning his neck down to catch the panicked teenager’s eye. Was he back with them…yes, sort of. Mostly. He gave a slow nod, taking a last deep breath, this time without the shudder that ran through his lungs.

“Nightmares, huh?” Tony had rested a hand on his bare ankle in the course of the last few moments, squeezing comfortingly, but Peter couldn’t quite look the sympathy in the eye. He was seventeen, he’s been Spiderman for almost a year now, he shouldn’t…shouldn’t be this affected by a nightmare. A nightmare he couldn’t even remember.

“Wanna tell us what it was about?” Steve glanced up at Tony over Peter’s head, subconsciously brushing the ends of sweat-bedraggled hair out of misty brown eyes.

“I don’t…I don’t remember. Just…” He coughed slightly, heat colouring his cheeks as he made to sit up slightly. Yeah…seventeen and needed to be coaxed awake by his guardian. Really mature. Running a slightly shaky hand down his face he pushed himself up against the cold surface of his bedroom wall, blinking the haziness out of his eyes. “Wasn’t pleasant apparently.” There was a huff of agreement from the end of his bed.

“Tentacles or flying, demonic dinosaurs?” The voice drew the attention of the three on the bed. Standing in the doorway, attempting to flatten down the mop of brown hair which had made him look significantly like a ruffled Sonic The Hedgehog, Clint Barton cocked his head onto one side. Beside him, tucked out of sight of the doorway, his bow rested against the wall. Couldn’t be too careful.

“Huh…” Peter replied, unintelligibly, licking his dry lips.

“The nightmare. Tentacles or dinosaurs. Knew I shouldn’t have let you read fanfiction. Far too innocent.”

“I didn’t…you didn’t let me. You sat there and read it out to me. In the kitchen. Over breakfast.”

“Lies and slander!”

Peter rolled his eyes, a smile cracking over his lips. A warm hand descended onto his shoulder, squeezing gently.

“Better, champ?” Turning his eyes upwards he gave the Captain a weak smile.

“Yeah…yeah, it was just a nightmare. Nothing more…”

“Good.” Clint yawned dramatically. “Bed…and no more late night hentai, kiddo. It’s bad for your health.”

Tony didn’t feel like explaining what hentai was to the bemused expression Steve was currently sporting, maybe Clint would be _kind enough_ to show him sometime. Just the thought sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of this bed and back under the covers.” The mechanic smirked at the embarrassed expression on the teen’s face.

“I can…it’s okay. I can do it myself.” He muttered, even as Steve unravelled the crumpled sheet from his legs, smoothing the fabric out as he pulled it up towards his chin.

“Just let the good Captain do it, Pete, makes him feel useful.” With a slight pop of joints, Tony stretched both arms above his head. “Without an Assembly in weeks he’s probably feeling like a chocolate flamethrower.”

“Chocolate…flamethrower?” Steve rolled his eyes, tucking the edge of the goose down quilt in for maximum, military style warmth.

“Thanks…Sorry about…before.” He murmured, sleepy blinking betraying his fatigue, which wasn’t in any way helped by Steve reaching out to run a hand through his hair, brushing back the ends from his forehead. The small smile that lit the Captain’s face held a dash of melancholy.

“Nothing to apologise for, Pete. Just get some rest. We’ll see you in the morning.”

With that the lights dimmed and the door closed with a click. Outside a genius mechanic ran a hand through his dark hair, digging the palm of his hand into his eye before moving in the direction of the kitchen. Clint, despite his words, had not migrated back to bed. Instead he was sitting at the large kitchen island with a glass of water and an equally ruffled looking Bruce Banner.

“Nightmares again?” Bruce asked as he heard the door close, accepting a glass from Clint.

“Thought he might be on fire with how load he was screaming.” Clint shook his head, taking a long draft from his own glass. Steve just sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Maybe we should take him down to medical in the morning, get him properly checked out. He’s been having more and more of them lately.”

“Good luck trying to get him to agree to that. You’re better off sedating him and strapping him into the MRI.” The archer huffed, unhelpfully. Steve shot him a narrow eyed look.

“Everything might just be…catching up with him.” Bruce put in to stop the glaring contest that was likely to erupt. Clint never did know when to back down. “He never gave himself an opportunity to really grieve. He never gave himself the time.”

It was true, Aunt May’s death had been sudden, devastating blow. But, luckily not for her. Sometime in the night, with an aneurysm no-one could’ve detected, May had passed with blissful ignorance. It had been halfway through the summer break, with Peter dedicating his time to training with extra vigour.

Steve sighed at the memory of the precocious child hanging, quite casually, from the ceiling, grinning down at Natasha. Most of the Avengers refused to spar with Peter for longer than a few minutes the reasons above; when your opponent could sit cross legged on the ceiling playing solitaire while you spent all your energy trying to get to him made things somewhat harder. As entertaining as it was to watch the kid do backflips across the ceiling or paint the walls in shades of spider-web as he attempted to distract them, when it came down to hand-to-hand, Peter had reflexes, strength and stamina beyond what most could keep up with.

In their own ways, each of the team could master one of his skills; Steve could keep up with the stamina and the strength, but Peter could land punches here, there and everywhere when it came to speed and appearing behind him without so much as a sound. Natasha was probably the only person who could sneak up on him, but with the spikey development of his spider-style warning system, she could only sneak up for so long before he was vaulting off the walls with a smirk on his lips. Thor could at least join him in the air, but once Mjolnir had been glued to the God’s side by string after string of sticky webs, the training room hadn’t fared well as the prince wrenched the substance apart. Clint had found the Spider to be excellent target practice without too much worry about lasting damage, but even he could do little when his entire quiver was congealed together. It wasn’t that Peter was the best of them, he was just a smug little git to train with, unless you were Natasha, and she had no trouble occasionally tranquilising him.

Tony had come up with enough little scuttling robots to keep him on his toes (and had given the teen enough bruises as he developed new found skills against the bots), but they all knew it was so they could keep the kid safe. That was the entire point of the Avengers, of any protection service; to keep the world from finding out just how dark and dismal it really was, and if they had to find out? At least they could batter the dark and dismal back into its gloomy holes. None of them could save Peter from the darkness he’d seen, both as Spiderman and before he’d even pulled on the Spandex, but they could at least alleviate some of the grief, right?

Each and every member of the team, and likely those beyond in SHIELD as well, had been dealt their share of misery and heart break in their lives. Losing loved ones, losing entire time periods, losing life styles and freedoms, losing brothers and mothers and lovers. They’d all seen hardships and had to make their way to the present through whatever dark tunnels they’d struggled through. But, no matter how realistic the team were, none of them wanted to see Peter go through the same pain. He was that bright, snarky light that came down for breakfast, made the mistake of stealing Thor’s Pop Tarts as he dragged himself out to catch the bus to school, and made disgruntled grumbling noises in reply to questions. Because, that’s what teenagers did in the morning, even super-powered, spider teenagers. Peter went to _school_ not some mutant academy, not some secret underground work station, not some government test centre. He was seventeen and going to something as beautifully mundane and normal as _school._ For all that he’d seen, all that he’d been exposed to, all that he’d lost, Peter was still just a teenager. He was still a child.

A child entitled to a breakdown.

As a child, Peter should’ve been put into foster care, probably carted off to the far reaches of New York, away from all that was familiar, all that was home. But, when one had lawyers like Stark’s handpicked selection, it had only been a matter of hours before Peter had been officially registered as a permanent member of Stark Tower. Steve had offered to move into Peter’s old house in Brooklyn, let the kid keep his old home until he came of age, but one of the few sentences he muttered while still in his fading state of shock was that he just didn’t want to go back there. He couldn’t go back.

Steve had made sure his room was right next to Peter’s. Which was where he glanced now, the two doors only yards apart, but enough to feel like an age when the alarms had sounded. “Maybe, but they are getting worse.” A murmur of agreement went around the gathered heroes. “If they get worse I’ll talk to him.”

And by talk, they all knew he meant persuade. Ever since their first meeting, Peter had a hard time saying no to his childhood hero, especially now he was his legal guardian.

Clint made the next decisive move, giving a wide, obvious, possibly put on yawn and stretched both arms above his head, empty glass dangling precariously from his fingers. “Better go tell the security guard we’re not being attacked by Banshees.” The security guards at Stark Tower were either stoic men and women who barely batted an eyelid at anything, or jumpy little sprites who’d just started their jobs and were set off by the most innocuous of noises (although innocuous was somewhat relative when you worked in the Avenger’s Tower).

“Call me when the squirt wakes up.” _Or gets worse,_ hung in the air as the archer vanished around the corner.

 

* * *

 

 

Worse happened a few nights later. Having been confined to the tower by exam study and an overbearing Steve who almost demanded (politely) that Peter work at the kitchen island or in his little art room so he could keep an eye on him, Peter hadn’t stretched his Spiderman legs for a while. His subconscious was well aware of this.

Most wouldn’t bat an eyelid at Spiderman sitting on the edge of the room, looking over the street below with his head cocked onto one side and large, white eyes hiding the evident glee the boy found in this very position. Especially not Phil Coulson, who hadn’t batted an eyelid at anything in the past eight years. Well, except for that time Hawkeye had dragged him into an ally and pushed him up against the wall with a sudden, unexpected kiss to hide from passing law enforcement. He might’ve batted something at that, but they didn’t talk about such a time. Coulson was a man that was very rarely ruffled, from his perfect tie to his elegantly fitted suit and precisely shined shoes. Had it just been Spiderman sitting on the ledge of the balcony, the agent would’ve had half a mind to push him off and tell him to go and do his job. There was something exhilarating about being able to push vigilantes off buildings with the knowledge they’d be absolutely fine. Most of the time, pushing people off buildings caused such paperwork.

Except, at this moment, he couldn’t push the kid off the balcony, because it wasn’t Spiderman sitting there, casual as you like. It was Parker. In pyjamas. Missing a sock.

It was cold for the time of year, wind whipping past the tower and rain starting to heave down to slick the boy’s dark hair to his forehead. But, he didn’t seem to notice, even as shivers wracked his body. Coulson stood for a moment, glancing at the clock on the wall. Beyond his usual curfew, beyond what any of the team tended to stay out on the streets, not to mention most of them tended to be in bed like good children by 1am on a school night. Which meant…

“Sleep walking.” The agent sighed softly, one hand resting on the sliding door to the balcony. “Anywhere else but the roof would’ve been great.” Or anywhere that he wasn’t and someone more intune with the younger man could’ve helped. But, he squared his shoulders and pushed the door open with its usual soft hiss.

“Parker?” His cultured voice called out above the rain, looking for any reaction from the shivering teen. Nothing.

“Peter.” Trying a slightly louder tone, the agent edged forward slightly, shoes splashing quietly in the puddles that were appearing on the concrete. The kid shifted slightly, one hand curled around the ridge of the balcony, perfectly at least, perfectly relaxed despite the constant shivers. Taking care to step quietly, and wrap his own hand around one of the bars that ran the length of the fifty storey drop.

“JARVIS, alert Captain Rogers to the situation.” Coulson was used to the AI by now, but that didn’t mean he had to particularly like the voice from the ceiling. It’s sarcasm was just like dealing with yet another overzealous super powered child. But, what he wasn’t used to was the almost apologetic tone.

“Master Peter has overridden my command functions, Agent Coulson.”

Overri- Oh, the sneaky, _clever_ little shit. He’d made sure the AI couldn’t tattle on him if he wanted to pop out over the city after curfew. God, sometimes he hated the tech savvy, but he couldn’t help but smirk that little bit.

“Then override him, evaluate the situation and think about what’s best for _Master Peter._ ” He was negotiating with an AI, that was just…not okay at 2:45am. Just as the AI went silent the boy shifted again, this time with purpose, a smile twitching his lips.

“Parker!” The shout vanished into the wind as Coulson lunged wrapping a hand around the collar of the kid’s Iron Man-motif sleep shirt just as the vigilante took the move to fling himself into the night, wrists bare of any web-shooter. His shoulder gave an undeniable pop as the kid hit the concrete, halting his freefall in a split second.

“Peter!” A panicked, sleep-roughened voice from behind Coulson was a welcome distraction from the scream his shoulder was giving him as he tried to hold onto the flailing boy by a slipping t-shirt. With heavy footsteps, Rogers was beside him, reaching over the balcony, grabbing an arm and pulling. Then the yelling starting. Unintelligible, terrified, eyes wide open and unseeing.

“Peter, Peter, c’mon, wake up, come _on._ ” Steve had dropped to his knees, back covering the soaking teen from the rain, arms pinning flailing appendages down, ears ringing from the slowly dissipating screeches.

It felt like an age not just for Steve, but for the drenched agent watching, one arm holding onto a likely dislocated shoulder, but the spasmodic movements slowed to a heaving chest and streaming hazel eyes that were flecked with red even as they focused on the worried face above him.

“S-teve?” His voice made the seventeen year old seem so much younger than he was, quivering and uncertain even as he took in his surroundings. “Wha…where?” His eyes fell upon Coulson, who made the move to step back inside as lights flickered on in the corridors beyond the main kitchen area. Oh good, the entire cavalry was up.

“You were dreaming, which turned into sleep walking.” Steve moved slowly, pulling the kid to his unsteady feet and giving his arm a light brush down where it had been pushed against the concrete. “C’mon inside before you catch cold.” Which was ridiculous…he couldn’t catch a cold not since scuttle scuttle bitey bitey, but Peter followed anyway, feeling oddly cold for someone who didn’t get affected by drastic temperatures.

Steve slid an arm around the boy’s shoulders, tucking him into his side, wondering if the comfort was more for him or for the quivering boy beside him. Blinking against the light, the pair were joined by a grease stained Tony, evidently having just sprinted up from the lab. Steve gave him a slightly bland, weary smile, steering the embarrassed teen towards his room.

Peter, he was exhausted. Miserable, cold, wet and exhausted and he didn’t even know _why._ By the time he’d been escorted to his room, a warm arm guiding him forward, he was fully awake, arms wrapped around his torso.

“Peter…how would you feel about going down to med-.” Steve started once he’d situated Peter on the bed, rummaging around for another shirt as the teen peeled off his single, wet sock, but he was quickly interrupted

“No, no, I’m not...I’m not going crazy, Cap.”

“I know, Pete, but these nightmares? And now the sleep walking.”

“We just want to make sure everything in that planet sized head of yours is ticking over as should.” Tony put in, picking up the discarded wet shirt and tossing it into the hamper. If Peter hadn’t been so embarrassed, he would’ve found it strange just how fluidly Tony and Cap moved around each other when they bickered so frequently about the smallest things. But, his mind wasn’t so engaged right now.

“I just… Don’t want to be a pincushion.” He mumbled lamely, tugging the new shirt Steve handed to him over his head, wiggling his toes against the sheepskin rug Aunt May had bought him when the heating had gone out in November a few years back.

“I know, champ, it’ll just be a few tests, a few scans. Nothing big, okay, and we’ll be there.” Damn Captain America and his crouching-down-in-front-of-you-soft-voice-of-reason-and-smile-of-comfort. Worked every time. As miserable as he was with the idea, he felt weak. Drained. He was a mutation that could spend hours at full sprint, swinging through rooftops as if he were doing hopscotch, and he felt weak. He hadn’t been out in days, hadn’t even trained since Tuesday and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a weak. Maybe…maybe something was wrong. He nodded glumly, feeling a hand stroke back his damp hair before a towel was draped around his shoulders.

“In the morning, then. You’re gonna be fine, Pete.” A hand tapped his cheek as Tony gave him a reassuring smile. “Sleep, or you’ll turn nocturnal like me. Believe me, the lectures on good sleeping habits aren’t worth the extra hours conscious.”

For the second time in a week, Steve found himself standing outside Peter’s door long after he’d closed it behind him. This time there was no Clint in the kitchen, no Tony to distract him, just the occasional scuffle of bed sheets as the boy within the room tossed and turned in a restless sleep.  

Tomorrow. They’d figure it out tomorrow or…later today.

At least they would’ve done had JARVIS not woken him up less than two hours later with an almost panicked tone in his cultured voice which set his mind racing two to the dozen and dread sinking tendrils of ice into his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> To Be Continued...!
> 
> Any feedback is welcome and appreciated, and yes I am still writing my other story, but I wrote about 10,000 words and then lost the document so my muse has been locked away in a box somewhere, so I just wanted to write something!


End file.
